r/gaydads

Our surrogate is in the Southwest, we're on the East Coast. Baby's due this spring. Trying to figure out the actual logistics of getting a newborn home, especially with the parentage order and birth certificate timing gating when you can even leave.

For those who were in a similar spot:

• How long did you end up staying after birth before you could travel?
• Did you fly or drive? If you drove, how'd you break up the trip with a newborn?
• Any surprises with the parentage order or birth certificate timeline holding you up longer than expected?
• Insurance or pediatrician gotchas in the birth state before you left?

Looking for Understanding, Support & Perhaps the Right Person
I wanted to share something personal here, hoping to find some support, understanding, and perhaps even someone who is willing to share this journey with me.
I’m 33 years old, an accountant, Palestinian Arab and Muslim, and I currently live in Israel. I’m also gay, and I’ve been in a loving relationship with my European boyfriend, who lives abroad, for the past seven years. We love each other deeply, but when it comes to having children, we have very different visions for the future.
He would prefer to have children through surrogacy, while I’ve always imagined becoming a father through a lavender marriage/co-parenting arrangement with a woman who genuinely understands and is comfortable with the idea that the relationship would be platonic. My hope is to build a respectful co-parenting relationship where we can both have our own partners and lives, while creating a loving and stable environment for our children.
Lately, I’ve been feeling quite sad and discouraged because I’ve encountered a lot of judgment around my situation:
I’m judged for living in Israel, even though I don’t have another citizenship or simply the option to relocate whenever I want.
I’m judged for being gay.
I’m judged for wanting to become a parent through a non-traditional family arrangement.
I’ve encountered people who see the situation financially and ask for extremely unrealistic amounts of money, sometimes even €1 million, rather than genuinely looking for a family arrangement.
I’ve also met people in similar situations who are primarily looking for a way to leave their home country or get married temporarily, rather than genuinely wanting to build a long-term co-parenting relationship.
All of this has made me lose hope at times. I genuinely want to become a father, but I also want to remain honest about who I am and maintain a life where everyone involved is respected and free to have their own relationships.
I’m not looking for someone to judge me or tell me that my idea is wrong. I’m simply hoping to meet kind, open-minded and emotionally mature people who understand that families can look different and that what matters most is creating a loving, stable and respectful environment for the children.
If anyone has gone through something similar, knows someone who has, or simply wants to share some support or advice, I would really appreciate hearing from you.
And perhaps, somewhere along the way, I might even meet the right person who wants to share this journey with me. ❤️

Hi everyone, been following this subreddit for a while now and really appreciative of everyone's comments and advice, but I don't think I've seen any specific posts about this:

My partner (M) and I (M) are based in Belgium (he is Belgian, I am Irish), and in the research phase of our surrogacy journey. At this stage we are more than likely going to pursue the journey in Mexico, but given the distance we'd have to travel to create embryos there and the cost involved with making more than one trip to Mexico (considering we will probably have to relocate there temporarily around the time of birth), we are looking into creating our embryos in Europe and transporting them to Mexico.

Has anyone here done that - i.e. created embryos in Belgium/Europe and transported them to Mexico? Are there any glaring reasons why this is not a good approach? Is it a much more streamlined/cost-effective process to just travel to Mexico to create embryos there with a Mexican egg donor? Or is transporting even just the sperm to Mexico and having embryos created there, without the need to travel, a better alternative?

Would be great to hear from people who are in a similar situation to us! I feel like a lot of the dads on here are US-based which obviously makes it much easier to travel to Mexico.

Has anyone had any experience with a clinic in Armenia for a single man using a surrogate? I’d especially appreciate hearing from anyone who has actually gone through the process. Thank you!

We love Palm Springs because of the easy airport, short flight, reliable pool weather, amazing restaurants, and the gay resorts. But would love to have more ideas. 😁

Hey everyone!
A while ago, I posted feeling completely torn between adoption and pursuing surrogacy as a gay couple.

Well, after a ton of long, late-night talks, research, and weighing all the pros and cons... we finally made our choice. We've decided to go the surrogacy route.

It wasn't an easy or quick conclusion to come to, but once we focused on our desire to have a biological connection to our future child, the path became much clearer for us. Ofc, adoption is a beautiful path, but for us right now, surrogacy feels like the right fit.

Now that we've crossed this mental hurdle and are officially moving forward with surrogacy, we're staring at the next phase and trying not to panic.

So I wanted to ask: how did you take that very next step?
Did you start reaching out to clinics first, look into agencies, or focus on legal research for international paths?

Hi 21 year old female looking for an older man for seed donation. I am looking to becoming a mom. Not looking to trap anyone just wants the donation. If the man wants to have some kinda of contact with the child we can work that out if not no big deal. I am 5’4 steel blue eyes dirty blonde hair 40 d breasts 145 weight. Have the old Hollywood hour glass figure. Live in Pa. Please be real with responses. Thank you

We were in Palm Springs recently at one of the gay resorts and people seemed very interested in talking to us. But as soon as we mentioned we were just taking a quick getaway from our Children-- it's like the vibe changed completely. Like our social value immediately plummeted. We've experienced this in different smaller ways. But this particular time, it's like a pool full of tipsy gays were reacting to a terminal diagnosis. Anyone else ever experience that at all?

The hubby and i starting out surrogacy process, we expect to have 2-4 kids. We now have the option to create embryos using the others genetic material with the same egg donor. Basically the kids could all be brothers anchored by the egg donor

But we are unsure if this makes sense. Like they would technically be more realted as a family to the donor the us. There is a part of me that like the genetic diversity that comes from multiple donors and also the risk that if lets say we get two kids and run out of embryos from this batch with this donor it would be kinda weird for the 3 kid.

Wanted to hear your thoughts on this and any advice to be had

Deciros que esta agencia de Suecia ahora ubicada en Madrid también clandestinamente miente en la información que facilita a los IP. Afirman procedimientos legales que no existen , mencionan prohibiciones médicas que no existen con la intención únicamente de que hagas embriones en USA y generar mayores comisiones para ellos . Después además respuestas vacías y ocultando partidas económicas ante situaciones como abortos pérdida de órganos etc . Si los costes no son detallados y se afirman cosas que son mentira cuando las confirmas con otros profesionales, mal empezamos.

Además de lo que hemos leído sobre ellos . Conclusión: comisionistas que solo quieren tu dinero .
Además no hablan idiomas como el español . Te atiende un señor brasileño. Utilizando argumentos vacíos y siempre hablando mal de otras empresas con las que hayamos antes hablado . Esas son sus técnicas de venta . No deben de haber tenido ningún proceso terminado de familias españolas porque no tienen ni idea. Solo tienen colaboradores en españa pero para eso no necesitas contratar a ellos .

Poco serios .

My husband and I almost never fight, we just never have and we've been together since we were teenagers.

Last night we had a huge fight over sending our twins to daycare this fall. They'll be three in October.

I think we should hire a nanny. He thinks they need socialization. I don't disagree.

Hadley our daughter is very outgoing and adventurous but Henry our son is not. He's very clingy. We've tried everything we can think of to assuage his fears.

Last week the twins slept over at my in-laws and things were fine at first but Henry wouldn't go to sleep and cried for almost an hour.

I finally went and picked him up. He was fine, no fever, no visible problems. But since then he won't let me out of his sight.

I'm a doctor, he's been looked over and tested. He's hit every milestone.

I know this is probably just a phase but I'm worried about thrusting him into an environment he's not prepared for.

I hate having tension with my husband.

Any advice?

Just started looking into Mexico as an option for our next surrogacy. As US ones are getting so expensive, and we heard that Mexico is getting more popular. But it seems that it involves quite more complexities than US ones.

If you've worked with a Mexican agency or looked into it, how was the experience? Any agencies you'd recommend or avoid? Any words of wisdom?

I also heard some people matching independently in Mexico, but that sounds even challenging, so would probably still prefer to go with an agency (but would still love to hear experiences with doing it independently in Mexico too, if anyone here has done it before.)

Hi, I am a single man from Cyprus planning a surrogacy journey in Armenia. I would love to connect with anyone from Cyprus or Greece who has gone through this process or is currently in it.

Hello all!

I recently have been looking into the surrogacy journey and very strongly want to help gay couples. The main reason for this is because I know that there are a lot of women that may feel strongly against it, especially in this country (U.S.).

I have a few questions for dads that have been in this process.

1- What company, if any, did you go through? Did you have any red flags with certain companies?
2- How involved are most couples wanting to be in the entire pregnancy/birth?
3- Do you/Did you want the surrogate mother to stay open for communication with the child later on?
4- Are there any lifestyle deal breakers that you had for your surrogate?

I am 27f, with 3 kids. My youngest is 3 months so I'm not looking to start anytime soon, but if I were I just want to know if these are deal breakers. I've had *mostly* uncomplicated pregnancies. With my first I ended up needing an induction at 38 weeks due to hypertension, but had a successful and uncomplicated birth. With my second I had gestational diabetes, but I genuinely believe that it may have been prediabetes due to not taking care of myself very well before birth. With my third I ended up going into natural labor at 35 weeks because so I got really sick and worked on my feet and the dehydration sent me into labor. All of my babies were born with no issues or c-section. BUT my main concern is: with there being 3 separate "complications" does that automatically make me less desirable? I've worked on weight loss and just overall improving my health since I experienced complications with my first two which I believe were specifically because I was overweight when getting pregnant.

I don't wanna reach out to 35 surrogacy companies and have my number stuck and get a ton of spam calls.

Thank you all in advance.

Could be something funny, something hard, something you absolutely love, or even one of those little moments where you suddenly thought, ohhh… straight parents probably don’t have to think about this 😂 Curious what everyone’s experience has been!

Maybe your kid casually explained they have two dads, corrected someone who assumed there was a mum, or said something completely innocent that unexpectedly got you right in the feels.
We talk a lot about the harder parts of being gay dads, so I’d love to hear the good stuff too.
What’s been your “damn, I love this little family we’ve created” moment?

I would love to be able to be an independent surrogate mom for a gay couple who I feel a great click with. I am just wondering what the best ways are to meet couples that have stable, succesful lives and are ready? I myself am in Europe where it is illegal to openly advertise surrogacy. I could perhaps find this in the US, but since I would like to be close to the couple when I carry their child, this is harder given visa constraints.

Does anyone have tips? Where can I best go?

Hey everyone, me and my husband are preparing to start the process of surrogacy very soon. We’re very lucky to have a close friend of ours who is more than willing to help make this happen for us.

One of the things we’ve been talking over is whose sperm to use. While we would love to have two children, which might make this question easier, we don’t know if that will be possible and are prepared for this to be our only one.

On my husband’s side, most of his family members are long lived with minimal health concerns or conditions. However, the family has a lot of mental health issues. OCD, Anxiety, Bipolar, ADHD, and Depression are all pervasive. My husband also has OCD and ADHD. Also a lot of Alzheimer’s and dementia.

On my side, there are minimal mental health issues and no one has been formally diagnosed with any sort of mental health condition aside from maybe depression or anxiety. However, my family does have a lot of health conditions that concern me like being particularly vulnerable to diabetes, heart disease, and some autoimmune conditions (though thankfully no cancer). No Alzheimer’s or dementia, my grandmother is in her 90s and still has good mental acuity.

If health is our deciding factor, which do you think we should prioritize? Stronger mental health or stronger physical health? We will be prepared either way to support our kid based on his or her needs, but we also want to give them the best shot in life.

Wondering if anyone would be willing to connect or share their experience with surrogacy as someone who doesn't have a huge amount of savings. My partner and I live comfortably ($110k combined in a very low cost of living area), and ideally we'd like to wait to save more, but my parents had me in their 40s so we'd like to get started soon while they're still healthy. Wondering if anyone has any advice for an affordable path. Thanks y'all!

My husband and I interviewed a potential night nurse/night nanny. It was such a positive experience. She is from the islands and deeply religious, but was completely comfortable around us. She told us about different parenting approaches to newborn feeding and sleeping. She gave us references that included both straight and gay couples who she has worked for.